Updated: 2026-07-31
The lowest temperature ever recorded at the closest meteorological point to Glasgow is -14.4°C, measured on 7 January 1970 at the Met Office station of Aberfoyle. This reading, taken at 28 m above sea level and 35.6 km from the city centre, remains the absolute minimum in the station's historical series from 1968 to 2001. It is the benchmark for extreme cold in the Glasgow area: no later winter has produced a colder night in the region's modern observational record.
Absolute minimum temperature – Aberfoyle station, 1970-01-07
The closest Met Office measuring point to Glasgow is the Aberfoyle station in central Perthshire, situated at an elevation of 28 m, about 35.6 km from the city. These are its historical records. Keep in mind that Glasgow's actual climate may differ from this station's readings due to local factors such as altitude variation, proximity to the River Clyde, urban heat island effects, or sheltered valley positions. The data below is the best available reference for extreme cold near Glasgow, but it represents a specific measuring site rather than an exact measurement of the city itself.
The all-time minimum of -14.4°C occurred on 7 January 1970. That day, the maximum temperature only reached 3.3°C, and the following night, 8 January, brought an almost equally severe minimum of -12.2°C with a maximum of 0.0°C – meaning the temperature never rose above freezing. This cold spell in early January 1970 remains unmatched in the station's 34-year series, and the record has stood for over five decades.
These are the five lowest daily minimum temperatures in the entire Aberfoyle record. The winter of 1969–1970 dominates the list with three of the five extreme nights.
| Date | Minimum (°C) | Maximum (°C) |
|---|---|---|
| 1970-01-07 | -14.4 | 3.3 |
| 1970-01-08 | -12.2 | 0.0 |
| 1973-02-15 | -12.0 | 2.0 |
| 1969-02-17 | -11.1 | 5.0 |
| 1970-01-06 | -11.1 | 1.1 |
The table below shows, for each month, the coldest minimum temperature ever recorded and the average daily minimum across the full period. January holds the absolute record, but February is notably colder on average, with a mean minimum of -0.9°C despite not reaching the extreme of January.
| Month | Record Minimum (°C) | Average Minimum (°C) |
|---|---|---|
| 01 (Jan) | -14.4 | 0.1 |
| 02 (Feb) | -12.0 | -0.9 |
| 03 (Mar) | -10.4 | 0.1 |
| 04 (Apr) | -6.7 | 1.6 |
| 05 (May) | -4.5 | 4.5 |
| 06 (Jun) | -1.0 | 7.0 |
| 07 (Jul) | -0.6 | 9.0 |
| 08 (Aug) | 0.8 | 9.3 |
| 09 (Sep) | -3.0 | 7.0 |
| 10 (Oct) | -5.5 | 5.0 |
| 11 (Nov) | -9.5 | 1.4 |
| 12 (Dec) | -11.0 | 0.7 |
This series shows the lowest minimum temperature recorded in each year of the station's operation. The year 1970 stands out clearly with its -14.4°C, while the warmest winters in this sense appear in 2000, when the coldest night was only -3.5°C. Note that some years are absent from the record (1976, 1977, 1979–1993, 1999) when the station did not report continuous daily data.
The chart shows the complete annual series. The table lists the most notable years; the full series comes from Met Office.
| Year | Coldest Minimum (°C) |
|---|---|
| 1970 | -14.4 |
| 1974 | -7.5 |
| 1975 | -5.5 |
| 1978 | -5.0 |
| 1994 | -8.1 |
| 1997 | -6.4 |
| 2000 | -3.5 |
The January 1970 cold snap that produced the -14.4°C reading was exceptional not only for its intensity but for its persistence. Three of the five coldest nights in the entire series occurred within a 48-hour window (6–8 January 1970). The morning of 7 January broke the previous record by a substantial margin, and the following night came within 2.2°C of matching it. This kind of sustained severe cold – with two consecutive nights below -11°C – has not been observed at this station since.
By comparison, the mildest winter in the series was 2000, when the coldest night of the year was just -3.5°C, a difference of 10.9°C from the 1970 record. This illustrates the range of winter severity that the Glasgow region can experience, from severe frosts that freeze rivers to winters where frost remains light and brief.
The coldest night of the year typically occurs in January or February, but the record shows that severe cold can strike as early as December (with -11.0°C) or linger into March (with -10.4°C). Even as late as May, the station has recorded -4.5°C, a reminder that frost is possible in any month of the year at this latitude and altitude.
As of the end of the station's reporting period in 2001, the record of -14.4°C from 7 January 1970 remains the benchmark for extreme cold in the area around Glasgow. While data coverage is not continuous across all years, no later reading has come close to surpassing it: the next coldest in the series is -12.2°C from the very next night, and the coldest reading outside January 1970 is -12.0°C from 15 February 1973.
Source: Met Office MIDAS dataset (Integrated Data Archive System), station series at Aberfoyle, Perthshire (1968–2001), under Open Government Licence v3.0.
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